by Jon Kiln
It started to make the priest feel uneasy in a way that he hadn’t done before. Even though the Tower of Record in the City of Gods had been home to his order – the Accursed Morshanti – even though he had lived in a holy city, the holy city as far as he had known – his kind had never received awe as well as respect. They had instead earned fear and hatred. We were taught to take away the sins of the others, to reduce the suffering in the world, and thus we were also the servants of heaven, not its masters.
It was strange, thinking these heretical thoughts, and Vekal felt torn between his old ways and his new understanding. Of course, his mind kept on returning to the fate of Meghan and Kariss, and what the devil had whispered to him. What did he have to offer them apart from death? Perhaps an eternity on heaven sounded good, but didn’t he want a life down here, in the Garden of the world, with them? Vekal felt a stab of pain pierce his side; my heart, as he thought of the scant few days he had spent in their care and company in their cottage in the Shattering Coast. Quiet hours spent with the murmur of crackling log fires, the gentle rhythms of the day; fetching water, harvesting food from their garden. Would heaven have any of these things?
The priest rather began to doubt that it would.
“Colleagues and friends!” A voice shouted from above them, following the blare of bronze horns. It was later, another morning over the seas of Gaunt, when the battle had finished, and the seas had finally stopped burning. The priest was doing what he had taken to do in his angelic imprisonment, walking the gunwales and galleries of the trireme, watching.
“The Lockless Gate has been secured! Victory is ours! For the Glory of Heaven!” the voice called from the top gallery, and a cheer rose from the Avantis crew.
‘Well, that’s torn it,’ Ikrit groaned. ‘You know that they’re going to be insufferable now, right?’
The waves of celebration spread out down the galleried tiers of the balloon trireme, some of the un-angeled sailors breaking into instantaneous praise-song and chants in their own strange language.
‘Save me…’ Ikrit sighed.
“Shhh. Let me concentrate!” Vekal hissed, turning to look over the side at the Isle of Gaunt. It was surrounded by a sludge of timber and sodden ash, and its topmost rocks were blackened with the many explosive flame-barrels that the Avantis had thrown down.
“But it’s not destroyed. They can’t destroy the Gate itself, can they?” Vekal watched a team of the angel-Avantis climbing over the island, searching it for goodness knows what.
‘That’s not all though. Look up, numbskull…’ Ikrit turned Vekal’s head to regard the airs around them, where now they were one of only three triremes total, forming a triangle in the air around the Island.
“Where are the others going?” he whispered, looking at where the other dark wedges of shapes were moving out of their shark-circling, and instead, heading westwards.
‘After the devils, probably. They’ve destroyed the fleet here, why not destroy something else?’ Ikrit scowled.
The priest stared long and hard at the slowly moving ships. And then he came to a decision. “I need to know more,” he hissed, turning from the rails and staking back inside the trireme’s corridors.
14
‘You could just ask me, you know.’ Ikrit sighed melodramatically inside the priest.
Vekal ignored him, now that he could. He wanted information that didn’t just come from a devil’s mouth. He wanted to hear it for himself. And I have the training to get it, he thought grimly, tightening his clothes about him, slipping off his leather boots in favor of his linen wrappings about his feet. They were quieter. They didn’t make a noise.
The Sin Eater’s of the Morshanti were not like other priests of the north. They did more than mumble prayers and teach theologies of their various gods. The Sin Eaters were trained in the delivery of justice and the judgment of the gods. If the Goddess Iliya was needed, they could impart healing and sacrament – but if the Lord Annwn was required…
Then the Sin Eaters of the City of the Gods could impart judgment.
It was an easy matter for Vekal to steal one of the Avantis’ cloaks from the Healer’s rooms where he had been staying. He was used to such quiet work. It didn’t tax him too much to wait until a time when he knew there would only be one healer present (a non-angel inhabited one) and to wait for his back to be turned for him to sneak out into the corridors on his cushioned feet, not making a sound.
‘Now this is the Vekal Morson I possessed!’ Ikrit said in a purr of pleasure.
Shhh… Vekal snapped back silently. He was out of practice, he needed to stay focused. He found his breathing slowing, his heart rate maintaining its steady rhythm as he found the poise and the trance-state that he had once been taught. The sounds of his surroundings jumped out to him; the creak of the wood, the distant sound of footsteps or voices in different rooms.
Where would the angels hold court? he thought, waiting for his senses to unfurl and reveal their secrets to him.
‘I know where I would put my money, priest. Up top. The very top,’ the devil suggested. ‘They love looking down on the rest of us peasants.’
Seeing as the devil was probably the only one who had more dealings with the angels that he had, Vekal decided to trust him – this once. He turned, his steps taking him to the end of the corridor, hiding in a doorway as Avantis sailors chatted joyously about their victory, before moving off.
The inside of each trireme was built pretty much like a wooden house, Vekal saw. Stairs led up to the higher levels, and the interior was given over to rooms. The next level up was finer than the one below, with offices and halls that must be given over to captains and quartermasters, priests or scribes. There was less hubbub up here, and the slight smell of fragrant incense.
‘Hells, I’m beginning to hate these Avantis people already,’ Ikrit sneered. ‘So bloody content.’
The Sin Eater waited until he saw his opportunity, to quietly ghost up the stairs to the topmost, final level.
The stairs emerged into the outer gallery deck, with a small, round hut of wood like a tower sitting in the middle. ‘Look out!’ Ikrit warned him, lending his body a burst of speed as the sound of heavy, clomping feet came close. Vekal moved, diving from the stairs to the walls of the Tower, moving steadily to keep the walking angel-guard always out of sight.
At his back, the wooden tower had only one double-set of doors, but it also had heavy shutters at intervals. Inside, he could hear the low moan of chanting. Vekal waited for the following footsteps to pause, recede, and the guard on the other side of him turn back around to stare out at the sea – just as he had done this morning, for hours.
‘Remember to breathe, priest,’ Ikrit advised, as his host crouched warily under one of the shutters, and strained to hear the mumbled discourse inside. ‘Really, you should have asked me,’ Ikrit repeated, this time washing its power over the priest’s hearing, making everything suddenly sharper, clearer, and as if he were standing in the very same room.
“…and what do they report?” a fine voice said haughtily. Vekal recognized it as Saphiel-Oulia’s.
“That the devils have only jumped ship, as it were,” another deep and resonant voice of an angel.
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” A sigh from the High Priestess and captain of the vessel.
“But true, Saphiel…”
Vekal felt a surge of anger that the angels, amongst themselves, didn’t bother to refer to their human hosts that they wore at all.
“…those devils that we did not manage to get our hands on directly, have merely left their human hosts at the time of death, and instead sought other accommodation. They will return here, and with larger numbers, no doubt,” the angel said.
“We will be ready.” Saphiel sounded defiant.
“But my lady, the numbers that we have…” another voice, a female angel that Vekal didn’t recognize.
“Do you doubt the armies of Heaven?” Saphiel-Oulia snapped back. “And by then, we
shall have one great advantage, too: the child.”
Which child, Vekal wondered.
“She is coming here right now, under Captain Ruthiel’s protection, on a galleon known as the Red Hand. They will be here by tomorrow morning.” The Priestess seemed intensely satisfied.
“Can it be true? Is she really the Saint of this Age?” Vekal heard the female angel murmur in wonder.
“Of course it is true, Alorel! It has already been ordained by heaven. Kariss, daughter of Meghan, is the Saint of these times. She was made for this,” Saphiel said reverently, proudly.
Vekal gasped, almost choking in his shock. If it hadn’t been for Ikrit watching his body, and stilling his throat, he knew that he would have given himself away. Meghan’s girl? The priest couldn’t believe it.
‘Really, priest? Did you not hear your fancy-woman say that she was special? That she had true dreams?’ Ikrit hissed.
Vekal had heard it, and he had believed it. But he had thought that it meant that Kariss was just like him, perhaps – an aberration, something unexpected and strange – but not the prophet of this time!
‘Magical talents are either learned through years of sacrifice, or given from the gods,’ the devil informed him sagely. ‘Your skills, priest, are the former. For a child of Kariss’s tender years – it can only be the latter.’
Vekal bit down on his lips in frustration. No. He didn’t want this for her, for them. He wanted them to be safe. They had seen far too much bloodshed already.
‘Only not enough to please the gods yet…’ Ikrit suggested dryly, as inside, the conversation between the angels of heaven continued.
“As you all know, these are drastic times, and they call for drastic measures. We will have to use the Saint’s blood to seal the Lockless Gate, and then we, my friends,” Saphiel said in a self-congratulatory fashion, “will control the flow of souls. No more devils swelling their ranks, and we will be able to summon however many of our brothers and sisters as we need to defeat them. Even if it takes a hundred years, we will win this battle.”
“And the Order will be restored,” the second angel said.
“Heaven on Earth,” responded the female angel.
“No,” Saphiel-Oulia said firmly, decisively. “The Garden is a failed project. It is too corrupt. We will destroy it utterly, it and the Hells that lie underneath it. Only the Kingdom of Heaven will remain.”
“What?” the second, male angel argued, as Vekal struggled to contain his horror and his fury. “That is not the will of the gods! We are to restore the balance of the three realms of the Underworld, the Garden, and Heaven. Not to destroy two of them!”
“I agree, Saphiel – this is uh… not the orders that I received…” the female voice said.
“And who is a Captain of the Heavenly Hosts here?” Saphiel-Oulia suddenly roared, and Vekal rocked as a wave of divine power welled out of the room. “Are either of you in touch with Heaven?” the angel continued, her voice becoming deeper, louder, and more powerful. It sounded to the Sin Eater like the rising growl of a storm tide, or a hurricane.
“But Saphiel!” the woman countered. “You know that contact here with the Heavens is difficult… How can you suggest that you know?”
“SILENCE!” Saphiel-Oulia roared, and Vekal felt his chest vibrate with the force of that command. He forced his eyes shut, but it still felt like he was staring into the hot, glaring desert sun.
“I am a Captain, your superior! I have been told to lead the people of Avantis here, to secure the Lockless Gate, to do away with the devils. Do you dare to question my divine will?”
Silence came from the room as the priest realized what was going on in there. When not training with weapons and in the arts of quiet and swift justice, the Sin Eaters spent many long hours in the scroll halls, studying and transcribing history. He knew a mutiny when he heard one, and this sounded like a mutiny by the angel Saphiel against its superiors. Perhaps it thought it knew better than the gods, or perhaps it was simply too much the fanatic, but either way the result was the same.
Now that Saphiel was cut free from direct rule of the gods in heaven, it sought to remake the Garden to its vision, Vekal thought in horror. Which meant killing Meghan’s child, and using her blood to secure the Lockless Gate.
Vekal couldn’t allow that to happen. There was no way that he could continue to breathe and allow that to happen.
“No, no, no…” the Sin Eater backed away slowly from the shutters. He had to stop it, somehow.
“Hey!” a voice broke his stunned state of horror, as he saw that the watching angel-guard of Avantis had appeared from around the edge of the wooden tower, obviously having heard his gasps of shock. “What are you doing here?” the guard intoned, possessed with a strange intensity.
‘Vekal! Allow me back in, you need my strength!’ Ikrit was suddenly hammering at the walls inside the priest’s mind.
Allow you back in? You’re already in me, imp! Vekal backed away from the advancing angel, but the stairs were on the other side of the guard, and behind him was just the railing.
‘No, you dolt! I mean drop your walls. Merge together as we did before! I can save us!’ Ikrit pleaded.
Something strange was happening to the guard’s eyes, and his hands, Vekal saw. They had started to glow. The priest had never seen such strange magics, and his back hit the railing as the guard raised his hands slowly in front of him, reaching out as if offering them to Vekal to grasp in friendship.
The Sin Eater did not think that seizing them would be a good idea, and instead, he chose the next least-bad idea from his options. He gripped the railing, and vaulted backwards in a somersault jump.
His knees screamed in agony as he landed on the gallery deck of the second level of the trireme. There was a snarl above him. “Oh, crap.” The Sin Eater had a moment to think, turning and running down the gallery, dodging sailors tying lines or acolytes waving incense burners as there came a following thump from behind him. The angel-guard had followed, and, with its still glowing hands and eyes, was chasing after him at nightmare-speed.
‘Vekal, you fool – give yourself my power!’ Ikrit shrieked and babbled in fear, as his human vaulted the next railing in a smooth jump, legs cartwheeling in the air as he landed to roll on the last, bottom deck amidst the shout of Avantis sailors.
“Stop him! Devil in our midst!” Vekal heard the guard shout as he picked himself up, continuing to run – anywhere, as long as it was away from here.
“He can’t go anywhere!” Sailors started to drop what they were doing as Vekal ran down the furthermost point of the wedge-shaped trireme, right up to where one of the three bowsprits were. Railings, a beam of wood and then air. Nothing more. Nowhere to run now.
The priest’s frantic steps slowed, and so too, did the angel guard following on behind him.
Vekal spared a look over his shoulder to see the large Avantisian grinning as he stalked towards him.
“Nowhere to go now, devil.” The guard raised his glowing, burning hands.
Okay, imp, have it your way! Vekal did what Ikrit had been suggesting, lowered all of his resistance and pride that stood between him and the powerful and ancient demon inside of his mind.
And in that moment, Vekal Morson ducked under the swing of angelic hands, ran out along the bowsprit as graceful as any acrobat, and dived from a hundred feet in the air to the churning dark waters of the sea of Gaunt below.
15
For the second time in his life, Vekal Morson drowned. Or rather, the body of Vekal Morson, Sin Eater of the Gods, drowned. All-in-all, you could say that he was getting quite used to it by now – if it didn’t hurt quite so much.
Vekal coughed out another lungful of ocean water, his body shivering and his chest feeling like they were on fire. “Gods…” the priest groaned, collapsing back onto the wet sand on the beach and shivering.
‘Don’t thank me then,’ he heard the devil say in his ear, sounding as annoyed as it always did.
&nb
sp; “I’m alive,” the priest said, this time managing to push himself up, partially at least, onto his elbows. He felt cold. And wet. His rags and bindings stuck to him, and his hair was plastered to his face.
‘Against all odds, and I am sure to everyone’s annoyance, yes, you are,’ Ikrit informed him wryly. ‘You should really stop doing that, you know. Dying. It puts an awful strain on my abilities.’
“Oh well, excuse me.” Vekal flopped over onto his back like a beached fish, coughing some more as he took in lungfuls of the cold, fresh, air. A few moments later, his eyes cleared so that he could see the grey and black storm clouds overhead, bunching up over the coast.
“Where am I?” he murmured, finally getting his staggering feet to turn around. No sign of the Avantis. The angels, he thought as he saw the beach extend up behind him, before breaking into a wide, tree-filled gorge. The land around the horizon was made of the same splintered black rock ledges and chimneys that he had seen before, and the seas were white and choppy.
‘Where do you think? Shattering Coast, still. About a couple miles further westwards, I think,’ the devil said. ‘I wasn’t really keeping count of where we were going, you know, as I was busy stilling your heart and stoppering your lungs from complete death.”
“Oh.” Vekal swayed back and forth. “I guess I should say thank you.”
‘Good. As you should.’ The priest felt the invisible devil sigh dramatically. ‘So. Now all we have to do is to head inland, right? Away from those floating feather-heads, before they track us down.’
“Kariss.” Vekal’s memories of what had happened just before, and of why he was here in the first place, fell into his mind like bricks down a well. “Kariss and Meghan. They’re in danger. We need to get to them.”
‘You’re a stubborn little eejit, aren’t you?’ the devil derided. ‘Not content with opening a portal to heaven and starting a cosmic war, you want to end it as well?’